Abbasi family inspecting the rubble of their homes demolished early Wednesday by the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem. (WAFA photo/Afif Amireh)

JERUSALEM, March 29, 2017 (WAFA) – Crews from the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem demolished on Wednesday two Palestinian-owned homes in Jabal al-Mukabir neighborhood of East Jerusalem under the pretext of construction without a permit, according to a family member.

Bulldozers of the Israeli municipality, backed by an Israeli police force, cordoned off the area where the two homes were located and forced the residents of the two homes to leave them before proceeding to demolish them.

The two homes belong to the brothers, Islam and Imam Abbasi, and shelter their two families of 14 members.

Mousa Abbasi, father of Islam and Imam, said the crews raided his sons’ homes at 4:30 in the morning, waking up and frightening his grandchildren, who number 10.

The crew removed some of the furniture from the homes before demolishing them over what was left behind.

Abbasi said his sons built their homes with a total area of 160 square meters in 2014 and continued during this time efforts to obtain a building permit for them and for the entire area from the Israeli municipality but to no avail.

They succeeded all this time to block threats of demolition, the last was until the middle of this month, but that the municipality came to demolish them without any prior warning, he said.

This comes only a day after the municipality demolished two buildings under construction in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya.

Israeli authorities have stepped up demolishing Palestinian residencies in East Jerusalem, particularly after West Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, said that the demolition of the illegal Israeli outpost of Amona in the occupied West Bank would be met with the mass demolition of Palestinian homes lacking the nearly impossible to obtain Israeli-issued building permits.

The Israelis municipality of West Jerusalem rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in East Jerusalem forcing many to build without permit.

M.N./M.K.